Five out of five for Mouat puts Scots curlers at top
Bruce Mouat’s PEAK-based Scots curlers were the only unbeaten rink after five matches at the Le Gruyere AOL European Curling Championships in Lillehammer.
Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan and alternate Ross Whyte have been in fine form with wins over Sweden, Finland, Italy, Netherlands and Estonia.
Against the Dutch, they registered a four at the opening end and were never threatened before wrapping up a 9-2 win with a three at the sixth end.
Given the attritional nature of major championship with their 10 end matches, there has been a bonus in the way they have set out in Lillehammer with early finishes in every match and that trend continued against Germany, albeit they were made to work harder for that win.
It looked as if it would be another comfortable evening for the Scots when they registered a two at the opening end, then stole at each of the next two ends to move into a 4-0 lead.
However, the Germans battled back to 6-5 before the Scots edged further ahead at the seventh, finishing things off with a three at the eighth to finish 10-5 winners.
“That was a good win against some tough opposition in the Germans,” Mouat said afterwards. “They really showed up in the middle section and we missed a few shots to let them back into the game. Our play was pretty ropey at times, but we got away with some shots and were just the wrong side of the inch with a few others.
“It felt like we were still playing really good stuff, though and it was another eight end game, which is nice to have instead of going the distance because it again gives us a wee bit of a break.”
That match took them into the second half of the round-robin competition, with just four more matches, while pleased with how they have positioned themselvesr, matching Scotland’s women in winning five matches to be the only unbeaten team in their competition, Mouat remains wary.
“At the halfway stage we’re feeling pretty confident, but we’ve got quite a few tough games coming up with Denmark, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic so we’re still going to have to play our best to beat them and hopefully put ourselves in a good spot for the semi-finals,” he said.
Yestrerday (Tuesday) their opponents were Denmark while today (Wednesday) they are up against Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Their final round robin match is against hosts Norway tomorrow (Thursday) before Friday’s semi final and Saturday’s final.